Lone woman found dead in flat

The woman’s body was found in the house (front left, with the balcony) near Gariahat Mall on Monday. Picture by Amit Datta

Parvati Dasgupta, a 48-year-old unemployed woman living alone in an apartment adjoining Gariahat Mall, was found dead on Monday afternoon.

Police entered the one-bedroom rented flat on the first floor of the three-storey Murari Bhavan at 12 Jamir Lane after one of her friends alerted them when he could not contact her over the phone.

Dasgupta’s body was found in a decomposed state, lying on the bed. “The house was bolted from inside. There was no visible external injury marks on the body. It has been sent for post-mortem,” said deputy commissioner (southeast division) Debabrata Das.

The woman used to work as a stenographer with a private firm in the Kasba industrial estate. She was currently unemployed.

Dasgupta had been staying in the flat for the past three decades, police sources said.

“After the death of her parents 10-12 years ago, she inherited the tenancy of the house. She apparently did not get married, had very few friends and was in touch with her sibling,” said an officer of Gariahat police station.

The police went to the flat when one of her former colleagues, Tapas Naha, alerted them around noon.

“I had spoken to her on Friday evening. She was worried over the RBI’s directive to withdraw the bank notes issued prior to 2005. She did not want to exchange those notes because these reminded her of her father. Despite knowing her emotional attachment to those notes, I told her to get them exchanged,” said Naha.

Naha tried contacting her on Saturday. “I did not call on Sunday. But I started feeling uneasy when her phone kept ringing on Monday. I dialled 100 hoping to get help from Lalbazar. No one took the call. So I called Gariahat police station and informed them about my fears,” said Naha of Behala.